I'm sure this is very basic, but I need some hints/tips/advice. I have a simple two color design using black and gold (yes, saints fan, sorry). It comes out great on the white shirts. I would like to do it on colored shirts...the black comes out great, but the gold, not so much.
I'm told you need to do white first, then the color...is there any easy guidelines on how to do this easily??? Or is there a better way?
I use the Wilflex Genesis super opaque for lights on darks and it works great. Print, flash, print and then to the dryer. Forget the underbasing whenever possible.
Maybe I'm jumping the gun, but what I'm guessing from your post is that you have little or no equipment.
Are you printing with a press? Are you using plastisol or water based inks? Do you have a flash dryer?
Normally, you would either print two layers of the gold to get a crisp, opaque print, or use a separate screen with the same design to print a white underbase - but this involves gelling the first layer of ink before you print the second. A flash dryer would do that.
With water based inks, it was my understanding that between the coat of white and gold you had to apply a clear coat to prevent the colors from mixing and coming out too light, which takes another screen.
If you don't have a press to register your prints in the same position multiple times, I would recommend looking for an ink that is marketed for its opacity and try to apply as much at once as possible. Buy a harder squeegee and pull it at a lower angle to get a higher ink deposit.
If you do have a press, but no flash dryer, look into buying one - it would be a great investment.
If you do have a press and a flash dryer, simply try doing two prints or underbasing the image. If you are using a metallic gold and not just a matte gold, you get a better print doing two layers and not underbasing based on my experience.
thanks for the responses...you are correct in that we really just went totally basic an pieced together our rig. Now that you guys have responded, we're thinking of upgrading and getting a bit more equip.
Question for you though, have you tried any of these big time Opaque inks while using just the basic equipment? It's not as though we are going to MASS produce, so we'd love to get by w/o having to buy too much more.
OK, I'm so brand new to this...if I catch what you are saying, you would put on a layer of the GOLD, then use a Flash Dryer (for how long?) and then another layer.
Next Question, can you recommend a nice (but not too expensive) flash dryer for low-medium usage? We don't plan to MASS produce anything at this point, so just need something minimal in price.
Printing simple design on Colored shirt 
